Three share $656m in US lottery

ATLANTA – The largest lottery jackpot in US history – a whopping $656 million (€491 million) – will be shared by the buyers of three winning Mega Millions tickets in Illinois, Kansas and Maryland – but their identities remained a mystery, lottery officials said.

A pre-dawn call alerted Denise Metzger, manager of a Motomart convenience store, to news from lottery officials that her store had sold a winning ticket in the tiny farming community of Red Bud in southern Illinois, with less than 4,000 residents, about 48km (30 miles) southeast of St Louis.